


Red Teeth, Bitter Bark

by forthecentury



Series: 13th Month Coven [3]
Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: Acts of Service as a Love Language, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Medieval, Ambiguous Relationships, M/M, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Werewolf!Mingyu, historically inaccurate writing, implied seoksoo and wonhui, witch!minghao
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-07
Updated: 2021-01-07
Packaged: 2021-03-17 18:46:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,180
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28604691
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/forthecentury/pseuds/forthecentury
Summary: Life in the coven follows a routine, and it's not always a bad thing. There's an apothecary to run, investigations to go on, dinner to make, and so forth. And once a month, Minghao will lock the man he loves behind a steel door so he can shift into a werewolf and wait on the other side, hoping that when morning comes, Mingyu will be human again.Lately, though. Lately, Minghao's been having thisdream.
Relationships: Kim Mingyu/Xu Ming Hao | The8
Series: 13th Month Coven [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2052279
Comments: 5
Kudos: 44





	Red Teeth, Bitter Bark

**Author's Note:**

> This story directly follows 'Beneath Your Shadow' and everything will make more sense to read that first! It's gyuhao-centric this time, but the others are present in the background too.
> 
> Enjoy :)

_I had a dream  
_ _I got everything I wanted  
_ _Not what you'd think  
_ _And if I'm being honest_

_It might've been a nightmare_

_-Billie Eilish_

* * *

“Did something happen, last night?”

Junhui glances up, fingers skimming over the drooping sleeve of his robes to keep it from smudging the ink.

“I’m sorry?”

Minghao gives him a _look_. “Did something happen, last night. Don’t try to lie, I felt it; so did Jisoo and Seungkwan.”

Junhui gets an appropriately chastised look on his face, and flounders. “Well...maybe. Just tried to help Wonwoo get a better night’s sleep.”

“ _Jun_.”

“I know! I know, I’m sorry,” Junhui cries, covering his face. The tips of his ears are red, and when he parts his fingers to look up at Minghao he looks even more scolded. “I’m sorry, it was really quick, I promise. I even checked this body, made sure nothing—well, broke.”

Minghao arches an eyebrow, and Junhui lowers his hands and bites his lip. “I won’t do it again. Promise.”

He looks so anguished that Minghao's initial exasperation wilts away almost instantly; there are few beings who can tug as effectively on his heartstrings the way Junhui does whenever he pines sadly after Wonwoo. And Minghao understands, what it’s like to watch someone you care about get hurt almost every day, and not be able to do anything to help.

“I’m not saying you shouldn’t help him,” he says, moving to sit on the bench beside Junhui. Junhui immediately leans his head against Minghao's shoulder, glum. “Just—please be careful. Like really, really careful. You have to remember your powers are astronomically incompatible to this world, and there’s only so much us witches can do to help you contain everything. One wrong move and you’ll do more damage than you can reverse.”

“I know,” Junhui sighs. He looks forlornly down at the scripture he’s copying, at the practiced brushstrokes and the glistening ink on the scroll. “He was in so much pain, Minghao. I couldn’t _not_ do anything; Wonwoo is a good man. He doesn't deserve this kind of suffering."

Minghao pats Junhui's shoulder companionably, going for soothing but probably coming off awkward more than anything else. "Has he been showing any signs of it again…?"

Junhui shakes his head. "No, not recently, ever since we switched over to the amulets. But it won't last forever, and the last time he went out of control…"

Minghao pinches the bridge of his nose. "We'll figure something out," he says, even though that's all he's been able to say about finding a cure to Wonwoo's problem. It feels almost like a sad white lie, but there's nothing they could do right now but to keep searching. Not when there's a chance they could potentially endanger Wonwoo's life.

Junhui's smile is dim, but genuine. "Thanks for helping, Hao. You and Jihoonie and Seungkwan and Jisoo—I don't know what we'd do without you."

"Probably flounder your way through every interaction with Wonwoo, for starters," Minghao deadpans, trying not to flinch when Junhui immediately flushes and socks him hard in the arm. For a deceptively easy-going person, he packs a mean, mean punch. "Ow! Moons and stars, you ass, just talk to him and tell him you like him."

"Shhh!" Junhui slaps a hand over Minghao's mouth, and ugh, he's got ink on his fingers and now it's going to get smudged everywhere. "He'll hear you!"

"Mrfgh," Minghao grunts, trying to shove Junhui off him. "Unless he's managed to develop super-hearing, then no, he's absolutely not. You’re already super flirty with him anyway, what’s the problem? And stop _touching_ me, you're getting ink everywhere—"

Someone clears their throats by the entryway, and Minghao looks to see Mingyu hovering nearby, a grin on his face as he watches them bicker.

"Should I come back later?" He asks, amused.

"No," Minghao grunts, pushing himself to his feet. Junhui yelps as he loses his balance on his bench and falls over. "Time to make dinner?"

If Mingyu had his tail, it would probably be wagging maniacally from side to side.

"The duck at the marketplace today was especially fatty," their cook says brightly, leading Minghao into the kitchen. There's already an array of ingredients spread along the table: herbs and spices, oils, root vegetables and leafy greens. At the center of the table is the star of their dinner for the night: four freshly plucked, perfectly plump ducks. They're the biggest ones Minghao's seen in years.

"Good lord, who did you bribe for these beauties?"

"Just good ol' charm and wit," Mingyu winks, rolling up the sleeves of his shirt. “And the coin pouch. Obviously.” He reaches into one of the cabinets and takes out two aprons. One is the usual blue he wears, and the other has dancing pigeons embroidered all over it.

"Seriously, can't you give me a normal one?" Minghao complains at once, even as he takes the proffered apron and loops it over his neck.

"What's wrong with this one?" Mingyu pouts. "I think it suits you." He points to the one wearing a Jester's hat and pointy shoes, doing a nonsensical dance. "Especially this fellow here, look at him go—ouch!"

"Keep talking, and I'll just keep the secret ingredient for my braised-duck roast dish to myself," Minghao sing-songs, and takes satisfaction in the way Mingyu blanches almost instantly.

"No no no, I'll be good, please, you said you would," he whines. "I picked out the _best_ duck for you too!"

"Jeonghan is going to scold you for spending so much on meat again," Minghao warns, popping out into the alcove behind the kitchen's backdoor to run his hands under the handpump. Even on a mild evening like today, the water runs ice cold and has his joints aching.

"He'll get over it," Mingyu waves him off, even though they both know he hated Jeonghan nagging and scolding him more than anything else. "Once he gets a bite of our dinner and he'll forget it all."

"Well, I suppose we should start cooking then, right?"

It's not something they do too often—cooking together, buying so much meat from the market all the time. Seungcheol knows a guy who knows a guy that owns a chicken farm and sells them eggs and meat at a discount, provided they service his farming equipment for a cheaper fare as well. Duck is a bit of a luxury, and not one they indulge in often either when they have twelve mouths to feed every day.

But they've had a good month, with Seungcheol's recent commissions from the medical college boosting their finances a bit, and there's been an influx of investigative work for the rest of them as well.

And Minghao doesn't mind imparting his great-grandmother's recipe as a special treat, if it'll keep Mingyu smiling like that.

Standing in the kitchen with Mingyu, wrist-deep in prepping the duck and walking the other through the careful measurements of all the ingredients that go into the glaze, it's easy to let go for once, relax a little, and live in the moment. The things haunting the corners of his mind and his sleep can wait.

Mingyu is the best cook Minghao had ever met. He makes food like an art, turning even the blandest of vegetables into something palatable and nice with just a few pinches of well-chosen spices or an interesting arrangement. He's especially good at making stews, the hearty kind that warms one's stomach on a frozen winter day, and for their birthdays he goes all out with his creations, laying down a feast worthy of a king.

The entire kitchen is filled with the thick, delightful scents of cooked meat, toasted herbs and sweet sauces by the time the sun sets—Seokmin comes wandering in at some point, and not far behind him will always be Jisoo, and Mingyu puts them to work whisking together the drizzle that goes on top of the perfectly crisp exterior of their roasted ducks. Minghao is quite proud of their creation, if he does say so himself.

"God, something smells amazing," Jeonghan groans, sneaking his way in just as Mingyu drops the last sprig of rosemary on top, and Jisoo levitates their dishes with a wave of his hand.

"You're in the way, shoo," the witch teases, and Jeonghan grumbles at him, clinging to Seokmin as he's collecting mugs for ale from one of the shelves. Jisoo gives him an exasperated glare, and Jeonghan sticks his tongue out at him like a toddler and drapes himself more on Seokmin’s shoulders.

Dinner is a delicious affair. It's one of the few nights they're all home together, and eating together. Usually someone is out on an investigation, or caught up in a project or experiment, too busy to join the rest of them. But even Wonwoo is present tonight, perhaps lured out of the depths of his laboratory by Junhui's sweet cajoling and the scent of good food.

Mingyu is laughing at something Soonyoung says, tipping over in his seat until all his body weight is flat against Minghao's side, the giggles shaking his shoulders and his warmth searing into Minghao's skin through his layers. He reaches out and absent-mindedly pats Mingyu on the head, pretending like he's still mostly focused on what Seungkwan and Jihoon are talking about, and not at all at how Mingyu had to wrap and arm around his waist to steady himself—and then forgets to remove said arm entirely.

And if Minghao forgets to move away, that's nobody's business but his own.

The others volunteer to do the dishes after dinner (Seungcheol manages to latch onto Jeonghan before the other could claim he helped cook and sneak away), so Minghao wanders to the storefront, doing one more check to make sure the doors are locked and the curtains are drawn for the night.

Even through the long, thick fabric, the white light of a full moon still manages to illuminate the entire room.

Wonwoo is waiting by the stairs when he returns, holding the spare bedding and blankets in his arms, with Seungkwan and Seungcheol by his side. The ambient atmosphere from dinner is already quickly dwindling away; the others have gone up to bed, politely giving the ones downstairs a little bit of privacy, aware of what’s to come.

Minghao swallows. "Has he already gone downstairs?"

"No, just went to get changed," Seungcheol reassures him. He places a hand on Minghao's shoulder, his touch a gentle comfort. Minghao gives him a smile that probably falls a bit flat.

Footsteps sound, and a second later Mingyu comes trudging down wearing only his oldest pair of trousers, a ragged thing with rips at the knees and threads coming out at the hem. He perks up when he sees Minghao waiting with the others.

"Okay," he says, nodding. He reaches for Minghao, and Minghao's heart goes stupidly soft, unlocking his limbs and allowing Mingyu to curl an arm around his shoulders. "Let's go."

Down at the bottom of their building, far below the forge, further than Wonwoo's lab, and at the very base of the foundation, is a room. Built right into the stone, originally meant to be a storage of sorts but now repurposed for a worse use, it's a sturdy little thing that's further reinforced by the steel door Seungcheol handcrafted to replace the old wood one. It takes both him and Wonwoo throwing their backs into it to push the door halfway open with a sharp scrape of metal-on-metal.

Seungkwan squeezes in first and lights up the room with a few glowing bulbs of light from his palms. They bob up to the top of the room, high above their heads. It’s empty on the inside, nothing but stone and paved flooring. Mingyu pushes himself in next, with Minghao following close behind.

"Wow," Mingyu says, squinting at a particularly deep gouge against the mortar on the ground. "I really did a number in that one, huh?"

"If you ever decide to take up remodeling, let me know," Seungkwan says. "I keep telling Chan his shelves are mounted on a slant but he won't believe me and it's an _eyesore_."

Mingyu barks out a laugh, the sound bouncing off the stone. Minghao's stomach twists.

"C'mere," Seungkwan says, rummaging through the pockets of his long cloak. He pulls out a tangle of long leather cords, and dangling from each is a shiny piece of hammered metal. Seared into the flat surfaces are runes of Seungkwan's own design, infused with his brand of magic: agitation-temping, mind-clarity, cognitive recognition. Mingyu dutifully lowers his head and allows Seungkwan to drape the necklaces over him, arranging them neatly before nodding his approval.

"I've modified the old designs to make them a little less obtrusive when you change," he says. "I hope they last longer this time."

"Thanks, Seungkwannie," Mingyu says, trying to go for a hair ruffle, but snatches his hand back with a yelp when a sharp crackle sounds.

" _Not_ the hair," Seungkwan huffs. "See you in the morning, Gyu."

"Okay," Mingyu calls, and then it's just the two of them now.

Minghao's skin prickles. The back of his head throbs with an oncoming headache.

Mingyu places the tip of his index finger under his chin and tilts his face up, so they're facing each other.

"I'm gonna be okay," Mingyu says, soft. "I always am."

"I know," Minghao replies. He feels tired already. "Won't stop me from worrying though, you know that."

Mingyu ducks down, trying to go for a kiss, but Minghao turns at the last second, unable to bear it, and Mingyu pauses a hair's breadth away from him. And then he leans in all the same, pressing his lips against Minghao's temple instead, the gesture so gentle and full of love it makes his undeserving heart ache.

"Make sure you bundle up in the blankets Wonwoo brought," he whispers. "And stay warm, it's cold down here."

Minghao nods, a lump in his throat. Mingyu strokes his fingers down his neck, the touch leaving a tingle of heat in their wake until he settles his fingertips at the collar of Minghao's shirt.

"I'll always wait for you, Hao," he professes quietly. "Whenever you're ready."

He can't bring himself to speak, but he reaches down to squeeze Mingyu's other hand—brief but tight, and hurries out of the room before he could do something worse, like cry and kiss Mingyu back.

Outside, the other three are tactfully staring at the wall, all pretending they weren't definitely listening in, if Seungcheol's sad eyes and Seungkwan's exasperated expression is anything to go by. Wonwoo is the only one in his corner, and saves Minghao from having to deal with emotions by handing off the bedding to him and gesturing Seungcheol forward to close the door.

"Night, Mingyu," Seungcheol calls.

"See you tomorrow, hyung."

They push the door shut, and Wonwoo slides the bolts at the bottom of the door into the notches in the ground. There's also a deadbolt and a lock on the door, heavy-set and angry-looking. Wonwoo leaves him the key like usual and gives him a nod.

"Wake us if you need anything, Minghao. We're just upstairs."

After that, silence.

* * *

Minghao could never bring himself to speak to Mingyu through the door.

He's sure Mingyu would reply, if he talked, probably eager to chat and enjoy going on and on about whatever thought he had as long as Minghao gave him the go-ahead, but there was just something about the cold stone and steel separating them and trapping Mingyu in that never put him in the mood for it.

He feels terrible, even though Mingyu has never been upset by that. He used to insist that Minghao should sleep upstairs and not suffer a night on the harsh floor in a basement, but Minghao would never leave him alone through this. He's a hypocrite like that.

The hours tick by. The candle burns on steadily, casting low shadows on the walls. The chill seeps into his bones despite the extra blanket Wonwoo left with him, and Minghao longs for Mingyu's natural warmth.

He senses it before he hears it.

It feels like someone had jumped out from around the corner and shocked him, except there are no sounds or shouts. Just the tensing of his muscles, all the hairs rising on his forearm, and the thudding of his heart in his ribcage.

A low, ragged growl reverberated from behind the door, the sound deep and dangerous. A quiet shuffle, faint movement, and the clack of claw on stone. Minghao holds his breath and leans slowly against the door, pressing his ear against the metal.

Back then, when Mingyu shifted during the full moon, it was a painful, terrible, and loud experience. None of them could stay with him to help, because it was too dangerous. The second humanity left him and the wolf replaced it, Mingyu wasn't their friend anymore, wasn't the man Minghao is in love with any longer. He’d kill any of them without hesitation.

Minghao used to listen to the horrendous sounds of Mingyu's cries and screams, the sounds of bone breaking and flesh tearing and everything reconstructing in the worst way possible, followed by the howls and scratching and snarling.

Nowadays, the shift is growing quieter, stealthier, faster. When Minghao first mentioned this observation to Junhui, his friend had paled, hands trembling as he took Minghao's into his own.

It wasn't a good sign. That means Mingyu is slowly becoming more wolf, and less man.

The steel is cold against his ear. If he listens closely, he can almost imagine the creature giving beside him, so close and yet so far away.

"Mingyu?" He whispers, only to leap back when something slams against the door, followed by a furious snarl and another assault. The deadbolts rattle in their notches. The lock groans but holds.

Minghao pulls back a few feet, onto the empty bedding, and draws his knees up to his chest.

"Mingyu," he tries again anyway, because the wolf will still rattle in the room until the early hours of the morning regardless of him yelling or staying silent. If he talks out loud like this, he could almost imagine Mingyu might still be listening in beneath the hunger and the animal and his curse.

* * *

Someone is shaking him awake.

Minghao grunts, turning away from the incessant prods and jabs, but his body protests. He feels a hell of a headache coming on, pounding at the base of his skull and working its way up relentlessly.

The hands stop shaking him after a moment, and Minghao revels in the peace again. That is, until he hears footsteps through the haze in his mind, and then more hands are back again.

"Stop," he groans, batting weakly at the annoyances.

"Oh thank god, he's alive," someone says above him.

"It's okay, it'll take more than a nightmare to end him," another replies, matter-of-factly. "Minghao, c'mon, wake up. You're scaring Seokmin."

He opens his eyes and blinks blearily up at Jisoo. The witch looks down at him sympathetically and places a cool hand at the back of his neck. The change in temperature is a refreshing welcome, and the second time Minghao blinks, he's feeling a lot more awake. The haze has retreated slightly, enough for him to remember falling asleep beside the door, and a dream—but what had it been?

"How are you feeling?" Jisoo asks, helping him sit up. "Seokmin went to bring you a tea earlier but he said you were twitching a lot in your sleep. When he tried to wake you, you wouldn't respond. What happened?"

"I'm not sure," Minghao admits, rubbing his face. The center of his chest aches, like he’d been struck. "I think I dreamed, but I can't remember anything about it."

Jisoo frowns.

"That's not...normal, is it?"

"No," Minghao shakes his head. He can't stop the anxiety that crawls back again, the looming feeling that something isn't right. For as long as he's had his powers, he's always remembered his dreams, even when he couldn't control them back then and they turned into nightmares. His magic, at its core, is prophetic, clairvoyant—for him to forget his dreams and the events they hold is a serious problem.

"Maybe you and Seungkwan and I need to do a mind link again," Jisoo says thoughtfully. "See if we can feel something you can't."

"I'd like that," Minghao nods. "Soon?"

"Soon," Jisoo, and his smile is as reassuring as the day they'd first met, when he crouched before Minghao in his shabby little streetcorner setup and said he'd bring him somewhere better.

Voices draw their attention to the stairway; a second later Wonwoo and Seungcheol both appear.

"Hey," Seungcheol says. "Are feeling okay?"

"I'm alright," Minghao replies, pushing himself gingerly to his feet. "Let's just...get Mingyu first."

"Of course," Seungcheol says. He goes up to the door and bends down, unlatching the first bolt. He and Wonwoo drag it back, and the other bolts allow the door to open no more than an inch. Seungcheol peers cautiously through the crack, and then nods.

"He's sleeping on the floor. Do you want us to save you breakfast in the kitchen?"

Minghao shakes his head. "Just bring our food up to his room, I'll wake him and get him upstairs. His back is going to be so sore after sleeping like that."

"Alright."

Mingyu is lying in the corner of the room, shirtless and curled up on his side. He'd managed to drag his pants back on at some point, saving Minghao a view of his bare ass, though it wouldn't be the first time he'd seen it. There are deep shadows under his eyes, a hint of stubble coming in, and deep scratches on his forearms. Minghao kneels next to him and eases Mingyu's body over until his head is pillowed on Minghao’s thighs, a much more comfortable spot than the cold stone floor. They'd tried to leave blankets for him before, but everything had been torn to shreds before it could even have been used.

He combs his fingers through Mingyu's hair, untangling the knots and rubbing against his scalp in a soothing pattern. The pendants Seungkwan made for him are barely hanging by a thread around his neck, the leather cords shredded, so he snaps the strands and collects the pieces before they could get lost. He traces his fingertip along the ridge of Mingyu's nose, the curve of his brows, the bow of his upper lip and just—admires, quietly, with the freedom of his own time.

When Mingyu finally wakes, he looks exhausted, but coherent. Warm and tired and still fully human.

"Hey, Hao."

* * *

"You know, sometimes I wonder what my life would've been like if you hadn't found me," Mingyu muses, cutting through the perfect runny yolk of his egg. It’s Seokmin's signature breakfast dish—he always remembered how everyone preferred their eggs. "I'd probably be dead by now. Or worse."

His own fork scrapes noisily against the plate. Appetite immediately gone, Minghao glares sideways at him. "Don't even joke about that."

"I'm just saying." Mingyu chuckles, holding up his hands placatingly. "I'm not, though, thanks to you and your dreams.”

Minghao shrugs, trying to stay nonchalant. “What good is it to have prophetic dreams if you don’t even follow through with them?”

“Well, either way, I’m grateful,” Mingyu says through a mouthful of bread now. He’s always starved after a shift, blazing through enough to feed three grown men and stressing Jeonghan out when he does inventory again. “And I feel kind of special, having _the_ Xu Minghao dream about me.”

He winks, acting greasy on purpose, and ducks under the bed laughing when Minghao grabs the pillow off the sheets and throws it at him. Mingyu has always had this very endearing version of how Minghao, after dreaming of the freshly-bitten werewolf Mingyu, came sweeping in heroically with Jisoo, Jeonghan, and Seungcheol to save him from certain death. Before all this—the wolf, the coven—Mingyu had been nothing more than a particularly talented cook of a Lord’s manor, caught in the wrong place at the wrong time and tricked into a feral werewolf’s path, ending up with a fate worse than death. It’s understandable he’s always looked up to their coven’s original founders and Minghao, thankful for his new home even if he is passing his days on borrowed time.

In reality, there is nothing heroic about it at all. Minghao had dreamt so viscerally of Mingyu being slaughtered by villagers and the hunting party of the manor that he’d burst into Jisoo’s room in the middle of the night, hysterical and delirious, before throwing up all over the older witch and then begging them to save the man his dreams had told him would be his soulmate. It was a mess, back when Minghao barely had any grasp over his own magic and let it run rampant all over his mind. He was lucky Jisoo even took him seriously at all.

Mingyu doesn’t know about any of this, and Minghao has no plans on telling him.

“Stop messing around and finish your breakfast,” he says, despite the millions of thoughts running through his mind. Mingyu pops up and dutifully tucks back into the eggs and bread, humming in satisfaction as he eats. Whenever he looks away or goes to take a sip of milk, Minghao slides more of his own breakfast onto Mingyu’s plate.

The headache and unease of the lost dream are forgotten, for now.

* * *

  
  
  
  


He is descending through what is left of their house.

The front had been torn open, the storefront in shambles. He is barefoot, but he steps through the broken glass, splintered wood and debris without feeling anything. The curtains are nothing but shredded bits of cloth, blowing through the hollow house like ghosts. Fear wells up inside his chest.

His first thought is to shout for everyone—yell for Mingyu, scream for Seungcheol and Jeonghan, but his body doesn’t respond. The sliding doors to the lounge hang off its rails, caved in, and half of the room beyond the doorway is a torched, smoking mess. Dust and ash floats through the air, and when Minghao places his hand against the wall to steady himself, his fingers touch something red and wet.

Someone is crying downstairs.

The sound is heart-wrenching and frightening, and Minghao finds himself sprinting down the steps. The stairwell seems to elongate, twisting away from him as he stumbles through.

This has to be a dream. And strangely enough, he feels like he’s been here before, has dreamed all of this before. But when—and how?

The sound is coming from Wonwoo’s lab. He stops short of the doorway, hand hovering over the handle. Something isn’t right. This doesn’t feel like the other dreams he’s had before, even the uncontrollable ones he’s had before he learned how to channel his core magic. A certain kind of dread fills him, like a warning, and Minghao suddenly doesn’t want to reach the end of the dream.

The crying is escalating, growing higher and higher in pitch until whoever is inside _screams_ —and the hallway warps, pain blossoms in the center of his chest, agony like he’d never felt before. His mind is caving in from the inside, and every part of his body is telling him to go back, to change it before this becomes his reality, but what is he changing? What is he supposed to _do_ , how is he supposed to save them?

The answer comes almost mockingly amidst his despair, and Minghao is suddenly catapulted into an entirely different dream. It’s nighttime, he’s standing in the immaculate storefront again, Jeonghan by his side, utterly confused. Someone is knocking loudly on the front door.

Jeonghan doesn’t want to let them in, doesn’t want to open up. Minghao waves his protests off, placates him with a touch to the arm. They need to open that door. They need whoever is on the other side.

He undoes the locks and wrenches it open. Cool night air spills inside, and standing illuminated on the doorstep by the gleam of the waxing moon is a young man, huddled into his cloak, face gaunt but eyes bright.

“ _Please,_ ” he begs. “ _I need your help. My name is_ —”

* * *

Minghao jolts upright.

It takes him a second to orient himself, with sleep still tugging at the corners of his mind and the confusion of having two dreams assault him in one go. He’s not in his own room tonight. There’s a warm weight against the bare skin of his lower back, and Mingyu is snoring softly into the pillow next to him, his arm slung over Minghao’s waist. They’re both completely naked.

Flushing, Minghao carefully extracts himself from the cuddle and fumbles in the dark for clothes, not caring what he throws on. The reason for his abrupt waking is clear now—someone is knocking loudly on the front door, despite the atrocious hour, and they’re not being quiet about it at all.

Minghao slips a shirt on last and throws the covers back over Mingyu before hurrying out of the bedroom.

He already knows Jeonghan will be there because of his dream, and lo and behold, the older man is stalking through the dark storefront with one of the pokers from the fireplace, wearing nothing but one of Seungcheol’s sleep shirts, baggy trousers, and a very annoyed look on his face.

“Jeonghan!” Minghao hisses, and Jeonghan jumps, whirling on him.

“Hao! Don’t do that,” Jeonghan huffs, grabbing his chest. “What if I hit you?”

“You wouldn’t have,” Minghao grumbles. “You definitely heard me coming. Put the poker down, you won’t need it.”

“Are you kidding?” Jeonghan retorts, gesturing towards the door. Their visitor is _still_ knocking. “I’m going to shut them up if that’s the last thing I do.”

“You can’t just go around beating people with a poker!”

“No, but I can scare the living daylights out of them if I yell loud enough.”

“Don’t,” Minghao insists, moving to block him. Jeonghan raises an eyebrow. “I’m going to open the door.”

“What? No, do not do that. We don’t even know who’s on the other side!”

The knocking goes stronger, more insistent. Almost desperate.

Minghao places a placating touch at Jeonghan’s elbow, urging him to lower the poker. “It’s alright,” he says. “Because I do.”

He undoes the locks and wrenches the door open. Cool night air spills inside, and standing illuminated on the doorstep by the gleam of the waxing moon is a young man, huddled into his cloak, face gaunt but eyes bright. Without the haze of the dream, the details of his face are much clearer—his hair is dark and long, his features faintly western, and peeking out from his top lip are two sharp, pointed fangs.

“Please,” he begs. “I need your help. My name is—”

“ _Hansol_ ,” Minghao finishes.

**Author's Note:**

> -Bit of a cliffhanger! With Hansol's arrival, the coven is now thirteen :)  
> -Minghao's core magic allows him to have prophetic dreams of varying detail, but the one he's always forgetting has a greater significance than he currently realizes  
> -Mingyu shifting during the full moon and Junhui's mother being the moon goddess—there _is_ a connection there  
> -I'm always curious to see if anybody has any theories based on my (bad) foreshadowing, so drop me a comment if you do! And feel free to let me know if anything's confusing, it's admittedly been a while since I planned out a long series :')  
> -Slowly but surely we're getting to the main plot
> 
> Hope you guys enjoyed! Take care everyone ❤️


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